Michelle Leder – Read the 10-K Before You Buy That Stock

<p><strong>BIO: </strong>Michelle Leder has probably read more SEC filings than just about anyone else on the planet since writing her book, <em>Financial Fineprint: Uncovering a Company’s True Value</em>, and starting her website, footnoted.com nearly 20 years ago.</p><p><strong>STORY: </strong>Michelle invested in a company without going through important SEC reports.</p><p><strong>LEARNING: </strong>Dig deep into the company’s 10-K annual report before investing. Look at the risk factors and what the company says about risk.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><blockquote class="ql-align-center"><strong>“Pay attention to the stuff in the 10-K if it is a significant position for you.”</strong></blockquote><blockquote class="ql-align-center">Michelle Leder</blockquote><p>&nbsp;</p><h2>Guest profile</h2><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-leder-341aa8/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Michelle Leder</strong></a> has probably read more SEC filings than just about anyone else on the planet since writing her book, <a href="https://www.footnoted.com/book/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Financial Fineprint: Uncovering a Company’s True Value</em></a>, and starting her website, footnoted nearly 20 years ago.</p><p>Michelle recently relaunched <a href="https://fnd.footnoted.com/subscribe/?mepr-unauth-page=98069&amp;redirect_to=%2F" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Friday Night Dump</a>, a weekly newsletter. It focuses on SEC filings made after 4 pm on Friday afternoons when companies tend to bury the most negative information that they are required to disclose.</p><h2>Worst investment ever</h2><p>Twenty years ago, Michelle was relatively new to investing and had been a business journalist for about 10 years. She bought some shares of Quest Communications because she was covering IBM at the time. IBM had just announced a big deal with Quest. Michelle thought this would be an excellent opportunity to buy some Quest shares. She watched the shares go up until they stopped and started plumm